LONDON doctor Jayne Donegan, 42, has gone from being an enthusiastic supporter of the
vaccination programme to a GP who will no longer vaccinate at all. Dr Donegan has two
children, Antonia, seven, and Pandora, nine. She says:

"Last year a newsletter produced by the Committee on Safety of Medicines and the
Medicines Control Agency was sent to all GPs and hospitals. It said that an independent
committee had reviewed all the available evidence on whether the MMR jab is linked to
autism and Crohns disease.

They concluded that it was impossible to prove or refute the suggested
associations between MMR vaccine and autism or inflammatory bowel disease  and went
on to say that the information available did not support or give cause for concern about
the safety of the MMR vaccine.

This does not make any sense. If they were unable to refute the claims, they
cannot then go on and say there is no cause for concern.

The Department of Health insists the MMR vaccine doesnt cause autism, but
every GP knows that when you give a vaccine, a child can get a high fever, suffer
inconsolable crying or uncontrolled screaming, which are signs of encephalitis (an
inflammation of the brain).

If a child had encephalitis from any other cause  such as measles and
had a change in personality, the doctors would say that the encephalitis was to blame.

Although they see so many people suffering from a mild form of vaccine
encephalitis, they say it definitely doesnt cause personality changes, and
definitely not autism.

Are they saying that vaccine encephalitis is different from any other sort? And
if so, how?

People might worry about the reappearance of measles, which is the most serious
of the three diseases, if we dont vaccinate.

According to government figures, deaths from measles had decreased by 95pc before
the first vaccine was introduced in 1968. The decline was steady, indicating that the
disease was dying out naturally. Diseases do die out on their own.

Deaths from measles had gone from 1,145 in 1941 to 100 in 1967. The figures have
continued to decrease, but not at any greater speed. So what caused the decrease in the
first place?

Better public health has had the greatest effect. The Victorians did a tremendous
amount to improve our living conditions.

The Victorians took sewage out of the streets and rivers, built railways which
brought fresh fruit and vegetables to the towns, and knocked down slums.

I believe vaccines weaken the Immune system. In 1994, the British Medical Journal
wrote that it was well known among immunologists that auto-immune disease such as asthma,
eczema and diabetes are the price we pay for eradicating infectious diseases.

The author said that our immune system had matured and developed purely because
of catching the diseases we are trying to eradicate.

In my opinion, normal childhood diseases are basically good for us. They teach
our immune system what is "us" and what is foreign.

All our childhood diseases were killers when they first came along. They wiped
out thousands because we had no natural immunity against them. Diseases infect us and, in
turn, strengthen our immune system.

I vaccinated both my children with the MMR jab, but this was before I started my
research into the problems associated with it.

Knowing what I know now, I would not vaccinate my children and run the risk of
them getting diabetes, asthma, eczema, becoming more susceptible to meningitis and ending
up chronically disabled.